Flux Runners

by William Joseph Roberts

  “I take it you'd like to volunteer?” Lizz handed Amanda the datapad.

  “Absolutely. Anything has to be better than being here with her,” Amanda said with a backward glare toward Krista.

  “W

  hat do you mean, Casraownan?” Mapharye grasped Casraownan by the back of the arm and held fast. “You can’t go with them,” she quietly shouted.

  “Don’t bother arguing, daughter,” Ceiwo said. “If he wishes to throw away his life and abandon us, then let him.” The elder Chinchassan adjusted himself on the odd seat and watched the crowd of hairless ones as they ate and chattered. He picked up another piece of meat from the platter that sat on the table. “What did you say that the hoomans called this?” He examined the sauce covered meat. “Barrrbeeqoo, was that it? It is exquisite.” He nibbled slowly at the sauce covered meat.

  Casraownan stopped and glared back at his mate’s sire. “And why shouldn’t I go with them. I know I don’t fully understand their language, but I wish to learn more from them. I spoke with Lizz a few moments ago. If I understand correctly, they are in search of the ones that battled our ancestors in the skies overhead.”

  “Lizz, Lizz, Lizz,” Ceiwo spat. “Has she befuddled your mind, Casraownan? We still do not know their intentions.”

  “No, we don’t,” Casraownan said. “And we never will if we don’t actively seek out the knowledge.” He pointed in the direction of Lizz. “Do you see those of their kind lining up before Lizz? They are volunteering to go out into the great dark above and search for those who may do us all harm.”

  “Look at all of this around us,” Ceiwo said with a nod. “Have they not already invaded us? Are we not being harmed by their presence?” He picked up another piece of meat and sucked at the dripping red sauce.

  “You make them out to be evil invaders, but yet you adore all that they have brought into our lives,” Casraownan said, motioning at the food on the table.

  “Why is this so important to you, Casraownan?” Mapharye soothingly stroked the large Chinchassan’s arm. “Why not stay, with us and learn from them, here?” She said pleadingly, leaning her head against his muscular arm. “And what about Jouqon? Would you leave him without a father?”

  Casraownan looked down a Mapharye and turned to face her, taking her face into his large hands. “I do this for all of us, Mapharye. For you, for Jouqon, for all of us. Before these people arrived, we were barely surviving. Everyone, even the younglings knew the pains of hunger all too well. Our bellies have never been as full as they are now. They offer us food, knowledge, and skills freely. That debt alone must be paid if for no other reason than to give back in thanks for what they have done.”

  “What they have done is befuddle your mind, Casraownan,” Ceiwo said as he nibbled at another piece of meat.

  “You should talk,” Casraownan said with a growl.

  “I’m going to sign up too,” Jouqon said. He quickly climbed into his father's arms. “I’m going to explore the black with you, father!”

  “I’m afraid not, Jouqon.” Casraownan peeled the youngling from him, handing him to his mother. “I have a feeling that our people are on the verge of something great. Just you wait and see. Then, you will make your own stories out there in the black.”

  Casraownan bent down and placed a gentle kiss on the youngling’s head, then Mapharye, his mate. “For our people,” he said then turned and headed for the table where Lizz sat.

  cHAPTER 47

  Gamma Draconis system

  Near flux point Beta

  September 8th, 2176 / Morningish (Dragon time)

  “O

  ne gauss turret on line. Two, two gauss turrets online, ah ha ha ha,” Fergus yelled in a horrible imitation of Count Dracula. “Three, three gauss turrets online,” he continued to count.

  “Did you figure out what that pressure fluctuation in the coolant pumps was about?” Trae looked up from his console toward Willy, who sat stoically in the command chair.

  “Nope,” Willy replied. “I tapped on the transmitter, wiggled a few wires, but nothing. We'll just have to see how it goes; I suppose.” He cocked his head and shrugged.

  “Okay, I think I have an idea of how this system works,” Jenny Reynolds, the newly acquired linguist said. “It looks a lot like the old Babeltron 1500 that I trained on in college. She tapped a thin finger on pursed lips as she contemplated the controls of the communications station which sat on the forward port side of the bridge.

  “The Geek supposedly fixed it up so that even a monkey like me could run the thing,” Fergus said, then continued counting to himself.

  “All sensors online and fully functional,” Trae said out loud to no one in particular. “We’ve also received images and details on the Reds. Holy shit!”

  “What? Fergus looked up from his console.

  “You aren’t going to believe what the Reds look like,” Trae said, then sent the image from his console to the main viewscreen.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Big Willy said.

  “Who’d have ever guessed we’d find an entire race of cryptids out here in the black.”

  The main doors to the bridge slid open with a woosh as Janey and Amanda stepped onto the bridge and suddenly stopped in the doorway, staring at the viewscreen. Casraownan closely followed the pair, then abruptly turned, making a B-line for Trae.

  “What is that?” Janey asked.

  “That, my good doctor, is what we like to refer to as, a mythological creature,” Trae said as he looked up at Casraownan. He nodded to the Chinchasan, who took up a position behind and to the right of Trae’s station, behind the command chair.

  “I can see that, but why is it on the screen?”

  “Because what you are looking at is, in fact, the aliens that we have been referring to as, Reds,” Trae continued, then glanced back over his shoulder at Casraownan, who stood stoically, his hands behind his back. He eagerly watched, observing Trae’s every movement.

  “Hi,” Trae said to Casraownan and smiled.

  “Hhhhi,” Caraownan said, then flashed a toothy, cat-like smile.

  “Hu, well I’ll be damned,” Janey said, then continued to her station.

  Fergus leaned over close to Trae. “Think he likes you, Trae,” Fergus whispered. “Didn’t anyone ever warn you about feeding strays?”

  Trae pushed Fergus back to his side of the station. “Will you shut up.”

  “Oh hey, I know,” Fergus said excitedly. “Let me see your laser pointer.”

  “What? No,” Trae said with a scowl. “I’m not going to give you my laser pointer. I know what you’re planning to do with it.” Trae glanced back over to see Casraownan still staring at him He nodded again.

  “Nope, not creepy at all,” Fergus said with a chuckle.

  “Did you find the Medical bay to your liking,” Big Willy asked Janey.

  “Very much so, actually,” Janey said, spinning her seat to face Willy. I half expected it to be a closet, to be honest with you. We have all of the medical supplies inventoried and stowed. I wish we had more on the medication side of things, but we'll just have to make do with what we have.”

  “I'm sure if we needed something particular for the mission, Krista would have given us the herbs to use,” Amanda said.

  Janey let out a sarcastic giggle as she activated the bridge medical station, positioned on the starboard side of the bridge. “I believe that Krista would let everything fall apart out of spite, just to prove me wrong in some way.

  “Yup, the coffee is hot, bitter and could strip the paint off a house.” Denise propped her feet on the auxiliary console and took a slow lip-smacking sip. “Just like my ex-mother-in-law,” she added. Everyone looked up in her direction.

  “What does that have anything to do with preflight checks,” Trae asked, shaking his head wearily.

  “Not a damned thing,” Denise said. “Everyone else was tossing out this or that so I figured what the hell, why not join in the fun.”

  Andy loudly
tapped at the helm console, passing through one readout after the next. “What in the hell? That doesn't look right and it sure isn't going to do us any favors either,” he said more to himself than anyone else.

  “What's wrong,” Willy asked.

  “I don't know,” Andy replied. “Can't you hear that hum?

  “It's just the engines man,” Trae said without looking up from his console.

  “No,” Andy argued. “I know what the engines sound like on this boat. It's not the engines.”

  “Does anything show up on a diagnostic,” Fergus asked.

  “No,” Andy said. “I’ve already ran three different system scans.”

  “You're just imagining it,” Trae said.

  “It could just be something specific to this ship that you aren't used to yet,” Fergus added.

  “No, it isn't,” Andy huffed. He continued through system readouts, initiating additional diagnostic scans.

  “It'll be fine, Andy,” Willy said. “Whatever it is, I'm sure that it'll work itself out as break this ship in.”

  “But what if it is something and we fly apart going through a flux or something craps out at the perfectly wrong time like when we're being chased down by an alien fleet bent on the total destruction of the human race,” Andy argued.

  “I just pulled the diagnostics,” Trae reported. “Everything comes up within parameters.”

  “I don't care what the diagnostics are showing. I'm telling you, something is off,” Andy continued to argue.

  “We don't have time to sit here chasing gremlins,” Willy said. “Let's get to the flux and get this shindig started.”

  “Your commanding officer gave you a direct order, Andy. Are you going to follow that order or do I need to remove you from this ship,” Fergus threatened.

  “Fine,” Andy said with a huff. “But I don't want a damned one of you bitching at me when something flies off or shorts out for no apparent reason.”

  “Just go,” Willy shouted.

  “Fine.” Andy input the destination coordinates for the secondary flux engaged the Woodward drive and rolled the two primary throttle controls to fifty percent. “There, are you happy now?”

  Willy growled under his breath. “Would you just shut up and fly this thing.”

  “It's flying itself right now,” Andy said. “I'm going to piss and get a drink real quick, y'all want anything?”

  “Sure, I'll have a beer and some nachos, heavy on the cheese,” Denise ordered.

  Willy's growl grew louder.

  “Just stay put,” Amanda announced. “I'm not doing anything important right now. I'll go down to the galley and get drinks for everyone.”

  “Oh, would you look at that? That's a fucking brilliant idea,” Trae said in a heavily sarcastic tone aimed at Andy.

  “Oh, okay. That works I suppose. Um...thank you,” Andy said then reluctantly sat back down at his station.

  “Leaving the perimeter of the secondary system defensive grid,” Trae announced.

  “Hey, didn't you guys say something about rearming those things,” Andy asked.

  “The satellites?”

  “Yeah,” Andy responded. “Since they still worked and all, that would be a major benefit to the colony. And actually,” he stood from the helm station and walked over to the forward most starboard auxiliary station. He tapped at the controls and cycled through screens on the console. “Don't you think we could duplicate a few of the dud torpedoes that were left in orbit?” He suspiciously gripped a plastic cover for an overhead relay junction and wiggled it. Squeak, squeak squeak.

  “Leave it!” An angry red flush crept up Willy’s neck.

  “See,” Andy said. “Didn't I tell ya I heard a noise?”

  The high-pitched warble of the flux alarm sounded. Andy sprinted back to the helm. “Approaching flux point. Flux drive engaged.”

  “Alright, here we go.” Willy took a deep, soothing breath.

  “All systems ready,” Fergus reported.

  “Event horizon in five,” Trae said. “Four, three, two...”

  “Hey,” Andy broke in. “What if the tail section of that red is still sitting on the other side of the flux?”

  The entire bridge exhaled a unanimous sigh, “fuck!”

  cHAPTER 48

  Gamma Draconis system

  Anderson (Eltanin 2) / Dragons Lair

  September 9th, 2176 / Evening (Dragon time)

  D anny leapt upon a dimly lit alien stairwell that led to the newly designated command center. “Hey Doug, hold up for a second,” he shouted as he sprinted ahead to catch up.

  “Make it quick,” Doug said, impatiently waiting on the stairs. “I was supposed to have already been in a meeting with Lizz about our overall progress.”

  “Oh good. I'm heading to operations to give our lovely Overseer my assessment of the alien ships. Mind if I walk with you?”

  “Not at all,” Doug said, then slowly turned and continued up the steps.

  Danny looked over the odd but sturdily constructed columns that lined the open area below. “Looks like those things could hold up to a nuke if they had to,” he said, nodding toward the columns.

  “They were probably designed for just that,” Doug said. “We’ve set up our new operations center in what we think may have been the space port’s main operations center. The layout along with control consoles and large wrap-around view screen looks like something we would have built.”

  “I've been tossing around some ideas with Flip, Chris, Perry, and that other new Engineer, Cara Cutillo,” Danny said. “You brought her back on the last Earthside run. We took a jumper out and did an up-close and personal inspection on the alien hulks.”

  Doug stopped and glanced back at Danny with a hollow-eyed stare. He dug out a cigarette, lit it, then kicked back a boot and leaned against the wall amid a thick cloud of smoke. “Okay so give me the details. How many souls were on board each of those ships?”

  “Cats or Red's?”

  “Let's start with the Cats,” he blew smoke out from both nostrils.

  “Too many,” Danny said reluctantly. “I'm sure that we'll never know how many were sucked out into space when the hull breaches happened, but what was on board was a lot.” He sighed heavily, then continued. “Over half of those on board were females and children. It looked like they had been living on the ship for generations.”

  “Dammit,” Doug took a long draw, fighting back tears. “Not exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to hear right now, but alright. What else do you have? It can't be any worse than that.”

  “After seeing the, um… kittens...” Danny said then dryly swallowed. “I figured that you'd maybe want to bring them down for burial or something. We made sure that they were all secured and couldn't float out of any holes in the ship’s hull.”

  “That's good. Thank you for that,” he nodded while he fought to blink back tears. “We'll have to get with Cass's people and see what they would like to do. I hate to sound like a vulture about to pounce on the dead, but we could use the parts and materials. What about their ship? Can any of it be salvaged?”

  “Well, she is running an antimatter reactor similar to ours. We haven't dug deep into the system yet, but we may be able to salvage and adapt a number of components from her to use on the Betty, Veronica or any of the other ships running that type of system. Power ratings will be critical to test, though. We don't know what the output is on their reactor, yet.”

  “Wes thought they were using an energy shield of some sort when they made their kamikaze runs. Look into that and see if it couldn't be adapted to work with our tech.”

  Danny smiled wide. “Already way ahead of you Cap. I left Chris and Perry up there to begin digging through their systems. Also, it didn't look like the cruise-liner had any offensive weaponry, only defensive batteries. You'd think after all of this time they would have put into port somewhere and tried to add some weapons to her.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe whatever had happened to t
heir people had them too scared to set down on any planet,” Doug speculated.

  “It’s possible I guess,” Danny said.

  “Alright, so what about the Reds then? Those ships are bound to have something we can use,” Doug said.

  “Each of the Red ships had roughly two dozen crew members on board, maybe. Each of those ships took heavy damage with multiple decks exposed to the vacuum of space.” Danny clapped his hands together and began to rub vigorously. “Now this is the best part. Are you ready for it?”

  “Alright, I guess,” Doug said.

  “You'll never guess what they look like.” Danny’s face brightened like a child waiting to tell a secret.

  “Like little green aliens?”

  “Nope,” Danny giddily laughed. “Try seven-foot tall, ironically covered in reddish-brown fur and smells like three-day-old roadkill. Well, more like a skunk that had been dead for days.”

  “Smell? Wait? How the hell did you smell them when they were exposed to the vacuum of space?”

  “We brought one back to the Ethel for that new doctor chick to look at. It stunk something fierce. She was driving us crazy wanting a specimen to study,” he said, exaggerating with air quotes. “So we obliged her.” He forcibly rubbed at his nose. “It'll take me weeks to get that scent out of my nose.”

  “So, what you're saying is that they look like interstellar Sasquatch,” Doug said guessing.

  Danny flashed a cheesy used car salesmen grin. “Ding ding ding, we have ourselves a wiener, ladies, and gentlemen! Congratulations and thank you for playing! Most everyone that was over there with us said they looked like Bigfoot or those big hairy aliens from that classic space flick where the dude had all of those daddy issues. We also took it upon ourselves to pass on the info to the expedition team before they left the system.”

  “Okay…,” Doug sat quietly in thought. “That’s good, but what about the ships?”

  “They look like they are running fusion reactors similar to the first-generation fusion reactors that the I.A. run on their battle cruisers or larger. But the reactor aboard the Red ships is half the size of the Betty's antimatter reactor. We aren't quite sure what types of weapons that the Reds have on board yet. They have an energy weapon of some kind; we know that for sure from the battle. But any more detail than that will take some time to figure out.”